Gil Hova
@gil.hova.net
2.1K followers 1.1K following 3.5K posts
He/him. JC/NYC. Game designer rebooting, robot fight facilitator at NHRL, weird/noisy music, ferret fan. Still not a negotiable Final Fantasy currency. All my links: https://gil.hova.net
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Here it is! Ferret Frenzy, the push-your-luck card game I designed with Channing Shattuck about the best pets in the world, is live on KS (and Channing is killing it with the campaign, he's way better than I ever was): www.kickstarter.com/projects/sha...
FERRET FRENZY: A Party Game of Risk, Reward & Ridiculousness
Unleash the push-your-luck thrill of Blackjack with the grabby chaos of Spoons in this wild game of SPEED and GREED.
www.kickstarter.com
When they told their dad that they were going to tell jokes like he did, he looked them straight in the eye and said, “Everything I said on the Jungle Cruise was the truth.”
I heard a story once of a person who got a job as a Jungle Cruise host, which excited them, because their dad had been one too.
Oh, I missed one ride:

JUNGLE CRUISE: You can tell that Disney has sanded down the more problematic edges of this ride over time. Still not great in that dept. We rode it at night for the first time, and that is the way to go. Just feels more thematic. And the nonstop dad jokes are 💯
Tomorrow: I return to Hollywood Studios for a few thrill rides!
TOMORROWLAND SPEEDWAY: Nothing special about this ride, but maybe that’s because I was “lucky” enough to go to Action Park as a kid. I asked my partner to drive (she doesn’t have a driver’s license), and she had a blast.
I’ll always be grinning ear-to-ear throughout this ride, from the gravestones in the entry area to the elevator ride to the spectral hitchhikers.
I will always appreciate how well they walk the line of “spooky, funny, never actually scary.” The whole ride is suffused with that spirit (no pun intended).
THE HAUNTED MANSION: Yesterday I mentioned how dated EPCOT’s rides felt. THM is even older than them, and I hope they never change a thing. After all these decades, I can still feel the cackling laughter and sheer joy the Imagineers felt crafting this ride.
THE ENCHANTED TIKI LOUNGE: I wanted to check this one out after watching Defunctland’s bit on automatons. It’s dated as heck, but the technology involved in bringing the whole room to life is really cool.
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: A classic ride. It’s silly, it’s goofy, it’s maybe a bit problematic at times. I still love the ship-to-ship cannon scene. I don’t recall it getting me so wet in the past, especially during the mini-flume (which feels like a sharper drop each time I ride it)
In terms of plot… well, true to the TRON franchise, it’s unfortunately not great. That’s too bad, I feel like they missed an opportunity. The way the ride narrative ends is weird and anticlimactic; it feels like the ride climax was removed at the last moment and they had to write around it awkwardly
And mechanically, the ride delivers. Well-paced, smooth-running. The motorcycle-riding position is a bit awkward at first, but it makes sense. (I can see some folks finding it uncomfortable though)
And my goodness, the LOOK of this ride. The bold reds and blues, the sweeping lines, the way the ride queue is revealed. It’s nothing short of gorgeous.
TRON: LIGHTCYCLE/RUN: Space Mountain now has a younger sibling that is cooler and prettier. TRON is a visual/graphic designer’s pipe dream. It may not be as popular as Disney would like, but that’s not out of lack of aesthetics.
Anyway, this might be my last time on Space Mountain, barring a major refresh. Partially for the above reason, and partially because of…
SPACE MOUNTAIN: It’s a good classic coaster, but… maybe I’m too old for it? It made me nauseated, and coasters rarely do that. I’ve done this one 2x before, and didn’t get that reaction. Maybe it’s the disorientation of speeding in the dark, and my limbic system just can’t handle that anymore.
Disney magic! Turns out there’s a few characters handled by live actors, and the computer animation is done in real time, like puppetry. It’s a very sweet effect.
MONSTERS INC LAUGH FLOOR: I thought this was a static computer-animated film, until some of the characters started addressing audience members by name and offering unique reactions to specific moments.
I love how Disney coasters have story beats, almost like cutscenes. They help riders catch their breath and build distance between emotional peaks in interesting ways.
GIL RATES DISNEYWORLD RIDES: MAGIC KINGDOM

SEVEN DWARVES MINE TRAIN: Started the day off with a kid coaster, but a nicely-executed one. Maybe the projection mapping was a bit creepy here.
A game set in India, with Indians featured prominently on the cover? What will they think of next?

Seriously, this looks like a better version of an excellent game. Hopefully they made no missteps here. I will still likely prefer my homemade version set in space though
Tomorrow: Magic Kingdom!
I will say that on Friday, I’m returning to do a few thrill rides: the Guardians coaster, Test Track, and the Mars side of Mission: Space. I think I’ll enjoy those more.
We finished with a DuckTales app game in the Mexican pavilion, but the app hung frequently and the big climax never got triggered.
The script feels like it was written by a half-asleep marketer. It’s narrated by Catherine O’Hara and Eugene Levy. You can almost hear them grimace as they try to work with the script’s bland attempts at humo(u)r. I hope they got paid a lot of CAD for this.